


From The Foundation Up

by gnimaerd



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Female Friendship, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-23 19:45:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1577306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnimaerd/pseuds/gnimaerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Au - Oliver Queen is dead. Felicity and Laurel decide to form a task force of his allies to keep Starling safe. Coping with grief is hard, coping with Oliver’s vengeful little sister is harder and who the hell is Shado, anyway?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ash and Motor Oil

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first chapter of a few, inspired by several gnawing plot bunnies (what if Thea became The Arrow? Exactly what level of awesome would it be if Laurel and Felicity were friends? What would the Arrow incarnation of Birds of Prey look like? What if Shado got resurrected?) which all kinda converged on this one fic. Enjoy!

Felicity’s good at lists. So’s Laurel. They have that in common. It’s the easiest thing that they have in common to deal with, currently, so they make a _lot_ of lists.

To do lists and shopping lists and schedules and budgets (handy cousins of The Lists); personnel lists come last.

“Sara,” Felicity says.  
  


“Obviously.”  
  


“…Nyssa?” Felicity hesitates, gauging Laurel’s reaction – her jaw has frozen up, mid way through the sticky part of a spring roll. “You know she probably won’t come without Nyssa.”

Laurel swallows, heavily. “Yeah I know.”

Felicity adds Nyssa’s name to the list. “Sin.”

“She’s super young…”

“Sara’s trained her though,” Felicity points out, and Laurel hesitates again but then nods, stabbing another spring roll.

“Diggle.”

“Yeah.”  
  


“Roy?”

“I guess.”

“Ah…”

Laurel suggests it so that Felicity doesn’t have to. “We should call Helena Bertellini.”

 

Felicity considers bringing up all the really good reasons why they shouldn’t – but doesn’t. Because Oliver is dead and he trained Helena and Starling is so totally screwed right now, do they have any other choice but to call in every favour ever?

“You call her,” Felicity puts Helena’s name on a different list, “she – knows you. I mean she’s tried to kill you more times than she’s tried to kill me.”

Laurel’s smile comes close to the genuine article for the first time since the funeral. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Great. Okay.”

(Neither of them mentions Thea. Thea is off the table, out of the question, no way, absolutely not, Oliver would climb out of his freshly dug grave to stop that happening. So they very firmly don’t talk about Thea.)

“So, um, I found this,” Laurel begins in a rush, putting the chopsticks down and sorting through a folder, “when I went through some of Ollie’s things – ”

A picture. Taken at a party at the Queen Family mansion, Oliver has thrown an arm around Felicity’s shoulders and is looking down into her face. Her hand is blurred – she might be reaching to straighten his collar or to wipe blood off his jaw.

The shot is clear but badly framed. It’s too a careless a moment to have been posed, neither of them aware of the event photographer. Poor guy presumably assumed he was catching Oliver Queen with a girlfriend, not an awkward moment with his secretary-come-super-secret-vigilante-sidekick.

“I know you two couldn’t… hang out in public much, so you probably don’t have too many pictures together, so,” Laurel pushes it across the table. “Thought maybe you’d want it.”

“Oh,” Felicity says. “Oh.”

There are no pictures of them together. Oliver was actually really careful about that.

“Thanks,” she mutters, so that she doesn’t start crying – she’s been so good about not crying today – and Laurel nods, uncertainly, searching her face – then reaches out and squeezes her hand.

“It was by his bed. With the books he kept, you know – between Confucius and one of those – godawful motorcycle catalogues.” Maybe she shouldn’t have said that. Does it mean anything, that the photo was there, where he slept, as opposed to – what? Where he worked out? Where he ate?

Laurel tries not to let how totally bad she is at this show on her face. Felicity’s clearly having a moment. More than anything she wishes she knew the woman a little better. It would make offering some kind of sisterly solace a little easier if they had…. any foundation upon which to build it, like at all.

(It wouldn’t be at all tactful to ask if they’d ever slept together, would it? Felicity has all the hallmarks of one of Ollie’s burned exes and yet also somehow… doesn’t. Maybe what was up with them was more complicated than that. Although really, post-Island, everything about Ollie’s relationships was more complicated than that).

But Felicity, and whatever her relationship with Oliver was, are part of another splinter Laurel has never had access to and now never will. Another of the various disconnected fragments he kept up in order to protect… well ultimately probably himself more than anyone.

“This is the best way to remember him, Felicity,” Laurel says, firmly, as much for her own benefit as for the other woman’s. “We pick up and we keep going. He’d have wanted that.”

“I know,” she nods, “just – the picture’s nice too.”

“Yeah.” Laurel thinks of how many she has of her and Oliver, gives Felicity’s hand another squeeze.

They’ll have to just start here, she supposes. This foundation: lists, and a photo, and grit and determination, the fact that she hasn’t washed her hair in like a week and feels gross and Felicity has chewed her nails to stumps and isn’t eating. This is how they’ll start over, because they have to. Because the city needs them.

***  
  


Somewhat unexpectedly, Nyssa and Sara turn up with a dead woman.

“This is Shado,” Nyssa says, without elaborating any further, as she carries her past Laurel into her living room.

“I owe her,” Sara adds, “can she stay on your sofa?”

Shado has a long, pale face and looks tired and sickly under a mop of stringy dark hair. Laurel doesn’t really want her on the sofa, she wants her in a bath, thoroughly scrubbed before she comes into contact with any of her soft furnishings, but she doesn’t say so.

“For how long?”

“Recovery from the sarcophagus may take days or weeks or months,” Nyssa is apparently feeling about as helpful as she was the day she took their mother hostage, “depending.”

“On what?”

“On the length of time after the person has been dead.”

Laurel decides not to ask any further questions, although she makes a mental note to call Felicity and ask again why they have to take Nyssa.

“I’m sorry,” Shado murmurs, as she is deposited on the sofa, “for the inconvenience. Do you have any tea?”

***

Thea turns up to dinner that evening, in the Chinese place that has become their unofficial base of operations when there are too many of them to all be crowded round Laurel’s kitchen table.

She looks ragged and wirey, like a snake. Felicity wonders briefly how the hell she found out where they’d be, but then spots Roy avoiding her gaze and realises it was stupid to involve him at all if they didn’t want Thea to know about the resurrection of Team Arrow.

(Not that it’s really Team Arrow anymore but damnit Felicity’s going to keep calling it that).

“Did you seriously think I wouldn’t notice if you all decided to just pick up the masks again?” she folds her arms, her voice far too loud for a public place.

“This is Oliver’s sister?” Nyssa enquires, one eyebrow raised. “She’s got archers’ fingers.”

“She’s a child,” Laurel snaps.

“I’m  _twenty one years old_!” Thea looks about ready to flip the table – Felicity finds herself gripping the edge of it automatically for support. “I want to help. You’re letting Sin help – she’s younger than me! You’re letting my boyfriend help!”

“Your boyfriend is kind of an indestructible supersoldier, though,” Sin points out, unhelpfully.

“And Sin isn’t getting anywhere near the field for a long time,” Sara adds, firmly, “she’s not even half way through her training.”

“So train me too,” Thea brings both hands down on the table top, her jaw clenched. “I can do it. You know I can.”

“Oliver never wanted you anywhere near this life, Thea,” Diggle stands, quietly pushing back his chair, staring her down. “He wanted you safe.”

Thea’s expression is patently unimpressed. “Oliver wanted a lot of things.”

***

 _Break_ , Sara thinks, keeping her expression as neutral as she can manage.  _Please break_. Because the sooner Thea breaks the hell down this can stop and Nyssa can start the process of putting her back together again.

Of course this was Thea’s choice. Diggle refused to train her at all, Sara offered but would have had to share her time between her and Sin and given how important it is, now more than ever, to get more competent bodies onto the streets as quickly as they can, it’s more efficient for Nyssa to deal with the bulk of Thea’s process. And Thea has waded in, determined.

“You’re a viper,” Nyssa remarks, amiably snapping Thea’s legs out from under her a third time (Sara tries not to flinch at the sound Thea makes when she hits the floor), “full of venom. And in my former line of work that would have been useful. Vipers make excellent assassins. But Starling doesn’t need another murderer, as I’m given to understand it. It doesn’t need an angry girl with a weapon and a vendetta. So we’re going to have to make you something else, and that process is going to be long and painful. Do you understand?”

“You think I’m here to have fun?” Thea asks, as she crawls back to an upright position, raises her hands, spits, “please – ”

Nyssa hits her again.

This is only going to get more brutal as it goes on, but Thea thinks it’s a test – everyone thinks it’s a test (they’re not wrong about that, to be fair, they’re just wrong about what’s being tested). She’s really not going to give any time soon – Christ, the kid’s a tank. Sin’s got more muscle on her and Sin would have tapped out half an hour and two broken ribs ago. But Thea’s full of rage and that’ll get a person through a lot, Sara knows.

“Again,” Thea is crawling back onto her feet, her lip split, her mouth a bruise, “I can do it – lemme try – ”

Nyssa’s pitying smile is genuine, Sara knows –she’s had it directed at her once or twice – but it only makes Thea angrier.

“Come on!” She wavers on her feet, bunches her fists, “I can – take it – ”

She doesn’t get that the point of this whole thing is to take her to where she can’t, of course. Once Nyssa’s found the place where everything about Thea is lost in the face of overwhelming pain and exhaustion, she’ll know what she’s working with. She’ll be able to build something then, on the burning foundations of this girl’s wounds.

But it takes hours. Sara’s glad she warned Laurel to keep Felicity the hell away from the Foundry for the day. She was expecting this to be over by mid-morning but it’s past lunch and Thea will  _not stay down._

Christ Nyssa’s going to have to start using actual weapons.

As it turns out it’s the long bow that finally finishes it. Nyssa chases her through three levels of the Foundry and Thea takes a bolt to the arm and doesn’t so much go down as she just – stops. Dead. Puts a trembling hand to the bolt, takes a breath, and falls over.

Sara knows she’s done the moment she hears her start crying.

By the time Sara has convinced her to let her remove it, Thea is a screaming, hysterical mess, has lost the ability to form complete sentences and is shrieking for her mother. Nyssa holds Thea, tightly, and sings her a lullaby whilst Sara soaks the wound in alcohol and hopes like fuck Felicity doesn’t get back until they’ve got a sedative into her.

It’s not really the wound – it’s the weapon. Nyssa probably picked up the bow deliberately, to see how Thea would react.

As it is, she sobs for her mother for the rest of the afternoon; and then, very quietly, for Oliver.

Sara resists the urge to wrap herself around her, knows well enough that it’s not what someone in Thea’s state wants or needs; instead she puts Thea to bed and wraps herself around Nyssa, drawing comfort from her familiar shadows.

“You wept for your mother too, you know,” Nyssa runs her fingers through Sara’s hair, “she’ll be perfectly alright, in a little while.”

“Seriously? My mom?”

“Yes. Almost everyone does.”

“Bet you didn’t.”

Nyssa smiles, enigmatically, and kisses her. “I suspect I’ve burned the snake out of Thea Queen, for now. We must next begin to make her a lioness. But given that we turned you from a street rat into a canary…”

“I was always a canary,” Sara pokes her, “you just gave me a bath, made my feathers all presentable.”

Nyssa snorts.

***

The way they train Thea is horrible.

After tentatively asking and being told that no, apparently there is no other way to train her than to essentially beat the everliving crap out of her every single day, Felicity quickly learns to just not be there when it’s happening. But she can’t always predict when it’ll end and half the time she ends up arriving in the middle of it.

Today, Thea is slumped in a glut of blood and bruises, one arm clearly dislocated, her head lolling back against Nyssa’s shoulder as the former assassin holds her upright for Sara to spray saline solution into her mouth, trying to wash out enough of the blood to check for broken teeth.

Felicity’s hands shake as she uses a cloth to wipe down Thea’s face.

“Oliver would hate this,” her mouth is set hard, “he would  _hate_ this.”

“Oliver’s dead,” Thea opens one swollen eye, spits out a molar. “Stop looking at me like that.”

Felicity goes a shade paler, has to hand the cloth to Sara so that she can lock herself in the toilet for a while.

***

She’s lost weight – nothing fits properly anymore.

“You need to eat something,” Diggle has ordered her dim sum – it used to be her favourite.

“It all tastes like ash,” Felicity shakes her head, “I didn’t even know that was a thing. I thought it was just something people said in movies but I seriously can’t… taste stuff anymore. It’s like my whole mouth has freezer burn.”

Diggle gives her shoulder a squeeze. “Wanna know something weirder?”

She nods, poking listlessly at the dumplings.

“Right now, everything smells like motor oil.”

“What?”

Diggle nods, “all I can smell. Motor oil. That’s weird, right?”

“That’s really weird.  _Motor oil_?”

“Sometimes it’s closer to… like, wet paint. It’s just this blank, chemical stink.” Diggle scratches the back of his neck, distractedly. “It happened after my brother, too. Must be a neurological thing.”

“Grief’s weird.”  
  


“It’s really weird.” Diggle breaks one of the dumplings open, offers her the smaller piece. “Come on. For me.”

The last thing she had was toast at breakfast like fourteen hours ago. And it’s not that she’s not feeling hungry, because her stomach’s been churning on and off for hours now, it’s just… god eating seems so beyond pointless.

She eats whilst Diggle watches her, and washes it down with water and miso soup, which tastes at least faintly salty rather than the gravelly, wallpaper-paste mush everything becomes in her mouth lately. Then she lets her temple rest against his shoulder for a while.

“Would he be angry with us?” She asks, softly.

“Who? Ollie?”

“For letting Thea join – would he be angry?” Felicity swallows back the edge of emotion in her voice because she promised herself the week before that she was done crying. It makes her feel useless – worse, pathetic. Laurel doesn’t spend all day weeping at her desk. And Laurel actually had a legitimate… thing with Oliver.

Diggle heaves a sigh, smooths her hair. “Oliver would never be angry with you, Felicity.”

“He got angry with me all the time – he snapped at me, he – ”

“When he was being a jerk with his brooding Hood routine, yeah,” Diggle shakes his head, “but he loved you, Felicity. He’d kick my ass, but he wouldn’t blame you for Thea… she’s a big girl, she makes her own decisions.”

“I don’t think he’d see it that way.” Felicity can feel her stomach curdling – that’s the other reason she doesn’t eat much these days. Every time she thinks about Oliver she feels sick, and she thinks about Oliver all the time.

“He loved you,” Diggle says it again, steadily, and that only makes it worse.


	2. Real Estate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which no one really knows where they're living anymore, there is a sex talk, lots of eggs and some unexpected nudity.

“Um – so, do you want eggs?” Laurel peers from her kitchen into the living room, to where she can see Shado curled against one arm of her couch.

 

She hadn't realised, when Sara had asked if Shado could stay on her sofa, that she meant that pretty much literally: it's been a week and Laurel's fairly sure that Shado hasn't gotten up once since she was put there by Nyssa. How she's peeing, Laurel has no idea. But she doesn't seem to be eating much so maybe she just doesn't use the bathroom.

 

Laurel tries not to think about the inner workings of the bodies of the formerly dead.

 

“Do you have any tea?” Shado's reply is automatic – she drinks two cups of lapsang soushong a day, and then some kind of herbal infusion thing at night. Nothing else.

 

“Sure.”

 

Sara and Nyssa aren't here, of course. Sara's technically staying in Laurel's spare room, but since Laurel really doesn't like having Nyssa in her home (she recognises that she's going to have to get over her discomfort at some point but for now 'no one who has ever tried to kill my mother sleeps under my roof' seems a reasonable ground rule), they seem to be finding places to sleep elsewhere – if they aren't just out fighting crime by moonlight. Which leaves Laurel playing hostess to her unexpected guest in the mornings.

 

At least Shado's quiet and doesn't seem to expect conversation.

 

“Do you – um – wanna move to the bedroom, or something?” Laurel offers, “Sara's not really using it so...”

 

Shado cranes her neck, curiously, then shakes her head. “I'm comfortable here. It's a more open space. I was enclosed for... a long time.”

 

Laurel sets a mug of tea in front of her on the coffee table. “Okay – well – I'm gonna make breakfast. Sure you don't want anything?”

 

“I...” For the first time, Shado hesitates. “I can't remember what hunger feels like.”

 

“Well... maybe we should start you on toast, see how you feel?” Laurel suggests, trying to ignore how completely weird this conversation is getting.

 

Shado hesitates again, then nods. “Yes. Nyssa said I would be able to eat but... only a little at a time.”

 

“Toast, then.”

 

She also really, really needs a shower, Laurel thinks – but she concentrates on the toast. The sooner this woman, whatever her tragic past, has her physical strength back, the sooner she can get off of Laurel's sofa and go and do whatever it is the risen dead are about. And getting her to eat seems like a sure start.

 

Shado is nibbling at her crusts when Laurel leaves for work, with her various contact numbers, and Felicity's, on the coffee table next to the tea, in case Shado might need something, although why Laurel feels compelled to leave her own number rather than just making sure that Sara actually comes home and takes care of her friend, she doesn't know. Probably because she'd feel like crap leaving someone who is clearly still very vulnerable at the mercy of Sara's ridiculous lifestyle – however much Sara has matured over the years, whether partying at college or stabbing rapists down back alleys, she's never exactly been one to keep regular hours.

 

“She said she doesn't remember what hunger feels like?” Felicity looks perplexed. “That's creepy, right? I mean, that sounds like it shouldn't be creepy, but there's something sincerely creepy about that whole concept.”

 

“Yeah, it's creepy,” Laurel sighs, “but what was I meant to do? Tell Sara 'no, sorry, take your creepy friend out on the streets with you at night?' She can't walk. She can barely sit up by herself. And I mean – she's nice. You know. Polite.”

 

“So are we seriously saying that Nyssa has some way of bringing the dead back to life?” Felicity raises her eyebrows over her coffee. “Because...”

 

“I'm really not sure that that's the greatest line of thought for us to be following right now,” Laurel shakes her head.

 

Felicity puffs a breath up into her hair but, mercifully, doesn't push. It's not like Laurel hasn't thought about trying to get more answers out of Nyssa and Sara about exactly what happened to Shado and if that method might be... utilised for someone else. But Laurel also seriously suspects that nothing about that road will be without cost and right now they are almost on the verge of getting themselves afloat.

 

They're looking at real estate and everything.

 

“I don't know,” Felicity spins on her heal in the middle of the abandoned basement that's their first port of call for the day. “Does this feel... lair-ish enough? Maybe if we paint it grey. Add some strip lights.”

 

Laurel snorts.

 

They pick their way through two empty warehouses and four more basements before calling it a day. It's painful, trying to envisage everything – the equipment, the people – somewhere else, but they're both aware that the Foundry is no longer a suitable place for them to be running their operation from. Thea is very publicly refusing to become QC's CEO, turning the company over to Walter and skimming from her trust fund but otherwise refusing to have anything to do with her family's company (she's not even really living at home anymore, as far as Laurel can tell). And she hasn't had anything to do with The Verdant since then either. There's no reason for them all to be running in and out of the club at all hours of the night and it's only a matter of time before someone detects what's happening, especially given just how many of them are now involved.

 

(All of that is a nice, logical excuse, of course. Laurel's also aware that Felicity cries at her desk at least once a week and that Diggle hasn't really been able to step inside since Oliver's funeral. The pair of them really, desperately need somewhere else to spend the bulk of their time).

 

“Are you eating?” Laurel buys Felicity a sandwich almost reflexively. Diggle mentioned that Felicity was losing weight and now every time they're together she makes a point of shoving something high-calorie under her nose.

 

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

 

“Because we care,” Laurel hands it to her, “come on, let's have lunch.”  
  


“Laurel...” Felicity's gaze is pained. She does look thinner, Laurel thinks – or maybe she's just tired, all pinched and wrung out. “I'm... busy.”

 

“Half an hour,” Laurel insists, very gently and very, very firmly.

 

Felicity hasn't done her roots lately, either, mouse brown starting to poke up beneath the blond, and she's not wearing nail varnish – no makeup at all, actually, which isn't like her – Laurel's fairly sure that she'd never seen her without lipstick before, not even when they were running round Starling taking on Slade. Not that Laurel's feeling like less of a mess herself (she's living in pants because that morning she got distracted half way through shavig her legs and now one of them still has a week's worth of stubble. Little things like that keep happening, as if her mind can't hold the mendacities anymore. She's more concerned with _where is Thea how is Sara what even is Shado has Felicity eaten today does Sin have somewhere to sleep which supervillain wants to kill us all now oh and don't drink don't drink don't drink_ ), but it's a little startling to see how swiftly Felicity has turned in on herself. It's been... Jesus, three months since Ollie died? Felicity looks like she's aged five years. Poor thing.

 

Laurel wishes she could put a finger on why she feels so protective – if it's the perpetual older sibling in her, the perpetual public defender, the fact that Felicity seems to bring a streak of that instinct out in everyone she meets because she's small and bright and seems to have a thread of innocence left; or if it's simply because Oliver wouldn't have wanted to see his friends like this. (All these things, she suspects).

 

When she finishes the sandwich, Laurel buys Felicity a cupcake.

 

 

***  
  
  


Thea has never felt so restless. She can't stop moving. “It's like I have ants under my skin,” she tells Nyssa, after a session, “I'm tired now but in an hour I'll be climbing the walls again.”

 

“That's good,” Nyssa tells her, “your body is strengthening. Make sure to get enough protein. And enough sleep.”

 

Thea nods, waiting quietly whilst Nyssa wraps up one of her wounds. For someone who can shatter an opponent's skull with a punch, Nyssa al-Ghul is a surprisingly gentle person between workouts; and she doesn't expect deep emotional conversation, which Thea appreciates. If Laurel tries to sit her down for another heart to heart any time soon she's going to run screaming for Central City.

 

“Are you sleeping?” Nyssa doesn't look at Thea as she smears honey across another cut (Nyssa's kinda old school about this crap).

 

“Yeah.”

 

“With Roy?”

 

Thea can't tell if that sounds like judgement or not. “Is that seriously any of your business?”

 

“If you are sleeping with him, I'll presume you're protecting yourself?”

 

“Oh my god,” Thea gets up, “what are you, my mom?”

 

“For all intents and purposes,” Nyssa folds her arms. “I had this conversation with Sara once, too.”

 

“Yeah, and that clearly ended well for the pair of you,” Thea retorts. “I'm not an idiot about this stuff, Nyssa, Jesus.”

 

Nyssa's mouth quirks. “It's the protection I worry about.”

 

“What?”

 

“You're on some kind of hormonal birth control, I presume?” Nyssa waves a hand, “you'll need to come off it. At least for a little while.”

 

“Uh – why?” Thea raises an eyebrow.

 

“Your body is in the middle of a physical transformation the likes of which it has never undergone before and most likely will not undergo again. Artificial hormones can interfere with that process – your body needs to be allowed to cycle naturally, as I said, at least for a little while.”

 

Thea frowns. This sounds a little like grade-a bullshit to her, but then Nyssa's kinda hollistic about everything (she has Thea meditating and drinking cleansing herbal crap for three hours a day already) and... Christ what does Thea know. All she wants is to be allowed out to kick some ass every now and again.

 

She sighs. “How long?”

 

“At the rate you're progressing... six months or so,” Nyssa replies, airily, as she gathers up the bandages, water and sutchering kit that are her standard post-training care pack, “after that, you'll have reached your physical peak and you'll be able to eat a wider range of foods again, as well – the hormones won't do you any harm. Although of course your mental training will need to go on much longer.”

 

Thea sighs, then reaches for the nearest clean-ish knife, flexing her arm preparedly. Nyssa blinks at her.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“I've got an implant,” Thea gently applies the tip of the knife to roughly where she knows it is, “it's gotta come out, right?”

 

“Go to a doctor and get it removed, child, for goodness sake!” Nyssa rolls her eyes, “I'm your trainer, not your butcher.”

 

“Oh, cause that time you stuck me in the arm with a cross bow bolt was so medically necessary,” Thea glares at her.

 

“At that position, you could sever a tendon. Go to a doctor.” Nyssa takes the knife off her. “And perhaps have a conversation with your boyfriend about abstinence?”

 

“Are you about to tell me that condoms are going to mess with my cycle too?” Thea groans and Nyssa laughs.

 

“No – only that I don't want you overly distracted. You're becoming a warrior, I want your energies directed here, not at that beautiful young man of yours.”

 

“I think I've managed to balance things out so far,” Thea insists, but Nyssa is already shaking her head.

 

“This first phase has been more about testing your resolve than anything – as you enter the next, trust me, you cannot have your physical energies directed elsewhere,” Nyssa's tone is firm, “all athletes are told the same thing. Your brother most likely had to enter a similar phase of abstinence himself.”

 

“Oliver was alone on an island,” Thea points out, bluntly. “Abstinence was probably pretty easy for him.”

 

“Ah well – you might ask Laurel's house guest about that.”

 

“What?”

 

Nyssa only laughs – she does that – talks in circles and laughs at Thea; she laughs way more than you'd expect some kind of super dark secret assassin type to. “Speak to Roy. Trust me, the process will be easier if the pair of you avoid lovemaking for the next few months.”

 

Thea avoids mocking the word 'lovemaking' (because _gross_ ) and instead sighs, but nods.

 

“So that's... alcohol, sugar, caffeine and now also sex, all off the table,” she sighs, “jeez, Nyssa, it's almost like you don't want me to have any fun.”

 

Nyssa gives her ear an affectionate tweak. “Go and shower, my little viper.”

 

What Thea doesn't say is that she's gonna have to find somewhere else to live now. She doesn't want to go home – she's not sure if she'll ever be ready to go home – and staying with Roy just seemed the easiest thing (also a handy way to know the minute Laurel and/or Felicity decided to do the obvious and set up a new vigilante team). But it's not the best way to avoid having sex with him. He spends so much of his time shirtless. And getting laid is the absolute best way to not think about Oliver – it's about the only way she's found to blank everything out, save from drinking herself into oblivion and that's not an option anymore.

 

God, now what?

 

***  
  
  


Of course Laurel's place is easy. Thea doesn't have a key and it's raining and Laurel isn't answering her cell, so: felony breaking and entering it is.

 

She scales a wall – surprisingly easy, she's definitely getting stronger – jimmies a lock the way Sin's shown her, and finds herself climbing feet first into Laurel's kitchen.

 

She's picking through the leftovers in Laurel's fridge (Nyssa's a stickler for diet so the pizza's out; she pokes at some kind of meat stew and starts mentally approximating grams of protein), when she hears someone clearing their throat.

 

“Can I help you?”

 

Thea promptly drops the meat stew all over the kitchen floor (Nyssa would laugh at her. So would Sara.) startled into whirling round. The woman on the sofa isn't Laurel – isn't anyone Thea knows.

She doesn't look like much of a threat, though. She's wrapped in a blanket and holding the TV remote.

 

“Sorry – I'm – hi – I'm,” Thea whirls between the mess on the floor and the woman looking at her and the mess on the floor – Laurel will kill her if she comes back and finds that, she's a neat freak. She grabs a cloth from the sink. “I'm Thea.”

 

“...Queen?” The woman's voice is soft with something Thea can't place. She glances up, finds the stranger's gaze fixed on her with sudden sharp curiosity.

 

“Yeah,” she sets about trying to get the worst of the stew off the floor, “who're you?”

 

“Shado.”

 

“Who?”

 

“I knew your brother.”

 

That brings Thea's head up again, because oh god not another one, if she has to hear from one more person about how sorry they are for her loss she may actually puke – but. Shado is only watching her implacably.

 

“He spoke about you often.”

 

“Yeah,” Thea hates these conversations. And the crap on the floor is really not going anywhere.

 

“You should use a dustpan.”

 

“What?”

 

“For the floor,” Shado points, “Laurel keeps one under the sink.”

 

Thea hastily retrieves it. “Does Laurel have – like steak? I need protein. Lots and lots of protein. I'm a growing girl.”

 

“There's probably meat in her freezer.”

 

As Thea puts a pair of chicken breasts in the sink to thaw, she comes into the living room to discover Shado channel surfing.

 

“There's a marathon on – Bridezillas,” Shado glances up, “it's horrible, and I'm addicted. Do you watch it? I've not had a TV in... almost a decade. So. I've got a lot to catch up on.”

 

“Have you tried Dance Moms? If you like horrible TV, you should probably try Dance Moms.” Thea sits down next to her and peels off her shoes, flexing feet, stiff from the day's exercise. Nyssa has her doing a lot of jump training and her toes aren't happy about it. She probably needs better running shoes.

 

“Duly noted.” Shado is watching Thea out of the corner of her eye – Thea can feel her gaze, steady and evaluatory. “You're taller than I thought you'd be.”

 

“Uh... thanks?”

 

“I suppose Oliver was always talking about a little girl when he told me about you,” Shado sighs, “when we knew each other, you'd have been all of twelve years old.”

 

Thea frowns, abruptly, because the math of that is... off.

 

And oh God – _Laurel's house guest._

 

“My brother was on a deserted island when I was twelve.”

 

“It wasn't that deserted.” Shado's smile is almost wistful – Thea can only stare.

 

“You have got to be kidding me.”

 

Shado shrugs, “it's a very long story.”

 

“So tell it to me.” Thea folds her arms, “I am seriously done with my brother's secrets, just fyi.”

 

Shado smiles again, leaning back, her gaze steady. “Make me some tea. And some toast. And I'll tell you whatever you want to know.”

 

Thea scrambles off the sofa.

 

They're half way through a loaf of bread and a whole pack of eggs – Thea's hungry too and that chicken is taking too long to defrost – by the time Shado has related the entirety of her time with Oliver to Thea. (Saving some minor details Oliver would most likely have preferred his sister spared from, such as how pleasant a sexual parter he was).

 

“So... he learned archery from you?” Thea is midway through her forth slice of eggs on toast. “Seriously? That's so cool. He never told me a woman trained him.”

 

“I suspect that the memory was painful for him,” Shado is thoughtful over her cup of lapsang soushong. “He did witness my murder.”

 

“Yeah – explain that part again?”

 

“It's... not the most pleasant recollection for me, either.” Shado glances away, and Thea immediately feels bad.

 

“Um – so – do you, like, still remember all the archery stuff?”

 

Shado doesn't dignify that, raising one feline eyebrow instead as she sips her tea.

 

“No I mean – could you teach me?”

 

“You really want to learn?” Shado quirks her head.

 

Thea nods. “Nyssa won't teach me yet.”

 

“I'm not going to interfere with your other training.”

 

“You could though, right? You could teach me.” Thea spreads her hands, “I could learn archery from the same person who taught Ollie?”

 

And Shado realises that she is not going to be able to tell the girl 'no'.

 

Laurel and Felicity arrive at Laurel's place to discover the kitchen in a state of disarray (egg shells and two frying pans one of which is badly burned and also bread crumbs and tea leaves and why the hell is there raw chicken in the sink?!) and Thea sat cross-legged in a puddle on the floor, rhythmically slapping the surface of a bowl of water.

 

“I'm learning archery,” she informs them both, firmly, before going back to slapping.

 

Laurel is unimpressed. “And it would have killed you to put down a towel first... because?”

 

“Thea will be coming here at five tomorrow morning,” Shado informs them, from the sofa. “To continue her training.”

 

“Did either of you know that Shado's the one who taught Ollie to use a bow?” Thea demands, “you know I think that technically makes him _her_ sidekick.”

 

“Thea, what are you doing here?”

 

“Nyssa said no sex, so I can't go back to Roy's.”

 

“That's... logical,” Felicity mutters, as she begins reflexively gathering up egg shells – bless her, Laurel thinks, because thank god there's someone else on this team who understands her need for actual basic human levels of order and hygene.

 

“You can't stay here, Thea,” Laurel sighs, “Sara's in the only other bed and Shado's on the sofa. I mean, unless you wanna – sleep under the kitchen table.”

 

“I could do that. Oliver did way worse than that.”

 

“Come back to mine,” Felicity suggests, “I have a sofa.”

 

Thea blinks. It's not that she dislikes Felicity – not at all, actually, Felicity's kinda lovely – it's just that... well Felicity looks at her like... exactly like she's looking at Thea now. Like she's looking at Oliver's ghost – like all she ever sees when she looks at Thea is the guy she was clearly in love with for God knows how long.

 

And if she can't distract herself with alcohol, or sex, or even chocolate, Thea doesn't want to be that right now. She can't be Felicity Smoak's personal poltergeist.

 

“Or not,” Felicity immediately senses Thea's hesitation, “I mean, maybe you'd prefer the kitchen floor – why wouldn't you? Laurel's got great taste in lino.”

 

Oh God Thea's suddenly understanding why Oliver never seemed to be able to deny this woman anything. She looks so fucking sad.

 

“It's fine – I'll sleep at yours,” she wipes her wet hands on jeans already at total saturation point, “that's fine, right? I can just come back here in the mornings and then to the Foundry the rest of the day.”

 

“Great, okay,” Felicity nods.

 

“And I should add that you are not going anywhere until you fix my kitchen,” Laurel prods Thea as she goes past her, collecting Shado's empty teacup from the living room.

 

“I'm sorry – I may have encouraged her,” Shado intones, absently. “I was hungry.”

 

“You're remembering what that feels like now?”

 

“I'm beginning to.”

 

“Where even is Sara right now?” Thea asks, as she begins to reluctantly pick her way through the rubble of her attempt at scrambled eggs (she's getting better at cooking, she really is, just... slowly.) “I mean, if she's sleeping here...”

 

“I don't ask what her and Nyssa get up to after dark,” Laurel shakes her head. “I just hope it's not – you know. Murder.”

 

***

Thea pretends to be sleepy on the car ride back to Felicity's, avoiding the other woman's gaze.

 

“Um, so I've got a spare duvet, and stuff. Do you have a toothbrush?”

 

“Yes.” God, they are all, single-handedly, trying to mother her to death.

 

“Hey, just looking out for your cavities – and that came out wrong.”

 

Thea manages a smile. The particular flavour of grief that hangs over Felicity Smoak's very being might be a little difficult for her to be around, but she gets why Oliver liked this woman. She's happy Oliver had this woman.

 

“Do you have any eggs?”

 

“Didn't you just eat, like, a whole box?”

 

“You have no idea how much protein Nyssa needs me to get to keep up with my training regime,” Thea yawns. “I need another meal before I sleep or I'm gonna wake up in a couple of hours and raid your fridge.”

 

“I'll stock up.”

 

They stop a grocery store. It's nearly nine at night and empty, and Thea trails contentedly around after Felicity, remembering random late night snack runs with Oliver when they were kids. Also one weird incident on holiday in Australia when she was about eight, when none of them could sleep because of the jet lag, so mom and dad took them all out looking for lunch at three in the morning and they ended up sitting outside an Australian gas station eating weird Australian cookies and chips and soda.

 

And then Thea thinks _fuck_ , because she's the only person left who was there that night. No one else now remembers their dad juggling cookies to make them laugh, no one remembers how Ollie snorted his soda and it ran bright blue out of his nose and their mom didn't even get mad because she was so tired. No one remembers her catching that weird cricket-looking bug and showing them all and how she named it George.

 

Felicity catches Thea sniffling into the sleeves of her hoodie.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

Which is a truly stupid question, Thea knows she must look the absolute opposite of okay.

 

“I'm great,” she replies, frantically scrubbing at her eyes. “I'm fine. I'm just tired.”

 

Felicity nods, takes her had and leads her out of the store.

 

“Sometimes I just remember stuff,” Thea mutters, back in the car. She wishes Roy was here – he'd get it, and she could bury her face in his perfectly formed chest and feel way better.

 

Felicity to her credit, only nods, doesn't push her. “I remember stuff too sometimes.”

 

Felicity's place isn't much further, thankfully. Thea climbs out of the car feeling numb, all of a sudden, drained and tired in her bones – the way she felt the day after Ollie's funeral, the day after her mother's. Just an old, tired sort of ache.

 

“You want some cocoa? With your eggs?” Felicity asks, as she unlocks her front door.

 

Thea nods, chewing her thumbnail.

 

They have turned the hall light on before Thea is abruptly hit with the understanding that someone else is in the apartment – not a feeling she can explain, just an icy sensation down the back of her neck, and she has already reached for the nearest weapon (an umbrella), reaching to pull Felicity back behind her.

 

“What – ”

 

“Shh!”

 

Thea puts a finger to her lips, her stomach churning, automatically testing the balance of the umbrella – Nyssa has just started to teach her the basics of handling a bow staff.

 

In the back of the apartment, there is a muffled thud. Felicity's jaw tightens, her hand going for her phone, as Thea edges forward.

 

“Thea – don't – ” Felicity's other hand is on her elbow.

 

But, frankly, Thea would kind of like a fight right about now. Anything to work the numb, exhausted, grief-wrought ache out of her bones.

 

She shakes Felicity off and has reached the kitchen just in time to see the table go over with a crash, two bodies disappearing behind it, and only a split second after Thea registers _crap a barricade they're forming a barricade –_ she also recognises at least one of the bodies.

 

“Oh my god.” Thea drops the umbrella with a clatter. “Are you serious with this crap?”

 

Sara, at least, has the grace to look slightly sheepish about how naked she is. Nyssa, meanwhile, is somehow making being wrapped in Felicity's tablecloth look unrepentantly dignified.

 

“What?” Felicity peers in behind her then clearly wishes that she hadn't. “Oh _god._ ”

 

“In our defence,” Sara peers over the tipped edge of the table at them, “it's really difficult to have sex in Laurel's place. What with it being, you know, Laurel's place.”

 

“So you broke into my apartment?” Felicity demands, “to do it in my kitchen? _Where I eat_?!”

 

“We didn't... start in the kitchen.”

 

“Oh god – oh god – I don't even want to know.”

 

“This is so not how I ever wanted to see either of you,” Thea groans, “I need a drink.”

 

“No you do not,” Nyssa narrows her eyes.

 

“Oh yes – yes I do. I have just seen like, your entire frontal area. I think that might be something only vodka can fix.”

 

“On second thought, I do want to know,” Felicity pokes her head around the doorway to the kitchen again, “exactly which sheets should I be dry cleaning?”

 

“None of them.” Nyssa waves a hand.

 

“We already put your couch cover in the washing machine,” Sara adds.

 

“Great,” Felicity sighs, “okay, I would like for you two to get less naked, please, like, immediately, and then go... wherever it is you go.”

 

What follows is kind of a weird naked treasure hunt around Felicity's apartment as the assassin and the vigilante hunt for clothes, and also put back all the stuff they knocked around doing... whatever the hell they do when they have sex that Thea doesn't want to ask them about.

 

Thea makes them all scrambled eggs (she doesn't even burn them a little this time).

 

“Can't you guys do it in the clock tower?”

 

“Sin's there at night,” Sara shrugs – Thea is trying not to watch the way Nyssa is stroking her hair, where they sit together on the table they've just put back. It feels like she's trespassing on something, looking at that. “Laurel's place has Laurel. And Shado. And usually you or Felicity. The Foundry is... the Foundry. Oliver and I used to... it wouldn't feel right, there. Anyway.”

 

“You could get like a hotel or something, though, right?” Felicity reappears, “because for the record if you ever break into my place again, I will mace the pair of you.”

 

Sara snorts. “You think we have that kind of money?”

 

“The moment I access any of my bank accounts I'll be traceable,” Nyssa adds, “and that won't be good for anyone's health, believe me.”

 

“And I'm basically living off Laurel,” Sara shakes her head, “we're kinda broke. You guys get that, right?”

 

“Wait,” Thea lifts the pan off the stove, briefly, to turn and look at them, “are you two, like, homeless?”

 

“I guess,” Sara shrugs.

 

“We've been much worse than homeless before.” Nyssa seems unfased, “frankly our current circumstances verge on luxury compared to some.”

 

“I'll take bouncing between couches in Starling to a cave half way up the Tibetan mountains,” Sara agrees, firmly.

 

Thea puts the pan back on the stove, morose now. “Jeez, you could have said something. I thought you guys had income.”

 

She feels like an idiot, though, now she actually thinks about it. She knows it's dumb to automatically kind of just assume that everyone has access to money in some form or another, just because she's never really had to face the reality of _not._ But... yeah she kind of just assumed Nyssa and Sara had access to some kind of money.

 

She's been assuming that about all of them but – how is Laurel planning to fund relocating their base? How is Felicity even managing the rent on this place given that she hasn't worked full time in three months?

 

“I'm hiring you,” she says, decisively, giving eggs a vigorous little shake to reaffirm her point. “Both of you. You're my personal trainer,” she gestures at Nyssa with her wooden spoon, “and on paper Sara can be my bodyguard. Okay? You're both going on my payroll. My trust fund can cover that much. I mean. I'm not using it for anything else right now, so.”

 

“You don't have to do that...” Sara is exchanging a glance with Nyssa.

 

“Yeah I do. It's what Oliver did, isn't it? He bankrolled the whole operation, one way or another,” Thea grabs a plate, emptying the eggs out of the pan, “if I'm going to become the next Arrow, I should work out how to manage the financial stuff too.”

 

The noise Felicity makes in the back of her throat sounds startled. “The next – what?”

 

“The next Arrow,” Thea glances at her. “I mean, obviously that's what's going to happen, right? I have to become the Arrow. The way Laurel filled in for Sara for a while being the Canary? It's not about who's behind the mask, or whatever. It's about the symbol. Starling needs the Arrow, and who else is gonna be that?”

 

“You don't think anyone's gonna notice that the Arrow's suddenly like a foot shorter and female?” Sara asks, folding her arms.

 

Thea shrugs. “I don't think anyone will care. Not once I prove that I can do the job just as well as Ollie did. And I will. Because all the people that made him great – really great – at being the Arrow – they're all around me. Aren't you?”

 

She looks at Felicity, and can't read the expression on her face. It might be pride. It might be something else, something sadder.


End file.
